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Presumptive regeneration (also presupposed regeneration) is the idea often associated with Abraham Kuyper that parents should baptize their children based on a presumption of the child's being regenerate. The 1905 synod of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, meeting in Utrecht (Conclusion of Utrecht), declared:
These 1905 "Conclusions of Utrecht" were adopted by the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church in North America in 1908. They were challenged from time to time, given an "official interpretation" by the Synod of 1962, and finally set aside in 1968.() Theologians of the Liberated, Free Reformed, Netherlands Reformed, and Reformed Baptist traditions oppose the doctrine. They charge this doctrine with providing parents and especially young adults with a false ground for the assurance of their salvation. Parents begin to regard their children as saved because they were baptized. Young adults begin to regard themselves as regenerate because they were baptized. Pastors begin to assume that everyone in their church is regenerate. Thus very little of the preaching is directed to unconverted persons and often neglects the necessity of repentance. These theologians would point to a document like the Westminster Larger Catechism as teaching the true ground for one's assurance of their own salvation.
Some Netherlands Reformed Church theologians might additionally point to a mystical revelation of God to the soul as providing the true ground for one's assurance. Such is their interpretation, for example, of Romans 8:16.
The term "regeneration" is also affected by subtle shifts in meaning. John Calvin considered regeneration to represent the activity of New Birth - not its completion. While the current usage of the term looks back on New Birth, early on it meant the process of New Birth itself, that is that God is working in the life of His children. His commentary on John 3 () and many of his defenses of Infant Baptism in the Institutes () show this interest not to consider regeneration only as a single event in the believer's life. ==External links== *(Spindleworks.com article opposing presumptive regeneration ) *(Apuritansmind.com article in support of presumptive regeneration ) 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「presumptive regeneration」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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